First post here. I couldn't find a transcription of Brian Wampler's recent mod to the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone pedal to bypass the heavy distortion stages of this beast and turn it into a decent EQ pedal/clean boost.

Apologies if it has been posted already but I thought others might want to polish this turd too.

These mods are mediocre at best. Brian even admits it. Much better to start with a simpler circuit and perform a mod that creates a pedal you will use. Anyone who has done these mods with fantastic results, is free to correct me. Just my opinion.

Thanks a lot, Wampler. Guess who's not buying one of your pedals now, jerk. Good luck sending your kids to college now!

In all seriousness, the demos of the EQ in the vid I linked to are pretty solid, certainly good enough for me to use to tweak a few fuzzes I have. I need a project to work on and picked up a new-new Metal Zone for $30.

I'll see. I've only barely even taken the board out of the chassis, so maybe it will suck ass. Who knows? Mileage varies.

Shoot, I'll definitely have a look at this tomorrow!! I actually had the idea to mod a couple MT-2's for EQ ONLY... but I never figured out how to get the boost part in there.

One minor caveat about this I have learned is the EQ section does NOT start out at neutral. If you put all knobs at noon there is an odd curve that is hard to dial out completely but it still makes a really great semi parametric EQ pedal.

bmxguitarsbmx wrote:ha. go for it. The mt-2 is a horrible, useless pedal... doesn't mean a modded one will be useful though. As I said, just my opinion.

but its an eq pedal now. very useful. you ding your head on a bike lately?

I've clearly triggered both of you. Being supportive is more important than being honest? Those are lame mods... I would be surprised if you found otherwise. Anyone with differing opinion? I'm not trying to start any beef, I'm trying to be helpful (believe it or not).

scoop wrote:.. EQ section does NOT start out at neutral. If you put all knobs at noon there is an odd curve that is hard to dial out ...

Maybe bypassing those 3 gyrator stages pre EQ will help. I've modded 4 metalzones, each a little differently and it can sound great. Why wouldn't it? Also having a ready made parametric EQ already there just waiting to be isolated is cool. I'm speaking as someone who has people just give me these things for free.

For your consideration, here is a pdf of the basic mod I started with. I'll do my best to find the working copy with my hand written final values that might be deemed V1. Basically, I'm lowering Q values and changing resonant frequencies.

This is a complex pedal. It's easy to get bad sounds of it and it's hard to mod good sounds into it. As an amp tech, I deal with an awful lot of poorly done modifications to both amps and pedals. It's a real time waster, but I try my best to see these things through to become useful tools for music creation once again. Most of the horrible mods I see came off ebay with no disclosure of any modifications done. Often, the seller doesn't even realize he/she is selling a modified piece of gear.

cheers

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bmxguitarsbmx wrote:For your consideration, here is a pdf of the basic mod I started with. I'll do my best to find the working copy with my hand written final values that might be deemed V1. Basically, I'm lowering Q values and changing resonant frequencies.

This is a complex pedal. It's easy to get bad sounds of it and it's hard to mod good sounds into it. As an amp tech, I deal with an awful lot of poorly done modifications to both amps and pedals. It's a real time waster, but I try my best to see these things through to become useful tools for music creation once again. Most of the horrible mods I see came off ebay with no disclosure of any modifications done. Often, the seller doesn't even realize he/she is selling a modified piece of gear.

well, whatev's The mods were posted as fun, not as a be-all end all. The mt-2 isn't that complicated, it's a basic analog distortion pedal with a fun EQ. Just bypass the distortion, making it a buffer before the eq.